Crossing the border with Blue Jays beat reporter Jordan Bastian.

Jays non-tender Raul Chavez

The Blue Jays did not tender a contract to catcher Raul Chavez before Saturday’s midnight ET deadline, making him a free agent this offseason.

This seems to make it pretty clear that the Jays have some things working on the catching front, though general manager Alex Anthopoulos was not immediately available for comment.

Toronto does not have a catcher currently on the 40-man roster. Rod Barajas — last year’s starter — is a free agent as well and he is not expected to re-sign with the club. Catching prospect J.P. Arencibia likely needs more time on the farm.

On the trade front, the Jays have been linked to Pirates catcher Ryan Doumit. Toronto is also believed to have interest in Angels catcher Mike Napoli. Coincidence or not, the Angels are pegged as the front-runners to land ace Roy Halladay from the Jays in a trade as things currently stack up.

All other arb-eligibles were offered a contract before Saturday’s deadline. That list includes Jose Bautista, Shawn Camp, Jason Frasor, Brandon League, Shaun Marcum, Dustin McGowan and Brian Tallet. Oh, and Jeremy Accardo, whose agent said on Friday night that the pitcher hoped to be non-tendered.

My guess here is that the Blue Jays will try to find a match for Accardo in a trade, or maybe try to package him in a larger deal. Accardo could also come back to the Jays for the 2010 season, but it sounds like he wants a fresh start with a new organization.

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The non-tendering of Chavez obviously means more shoes to drop, either in FA signings or trades, so I’m not surprised he was non tendered.

However, what is a surprise is an offering of contract to Bautista which might or might not be a major concern. He was already overpaid at $2.4 million, and I believe the maximum discount from previous salary is 20% which would still put him at about $2 million-assuming he’s agreeable to that.

That doesn’t bother me, although it’s a waste of money, what bothers me, is signing him could be a signal of either platooning Snider or sending him down to AAA, either of which, IMO, would be disastrous for fan relations and Snider himself. If he’s signed strictly as a 4th outfielder, no problem.
But Cito likes Bautista and I have a bad feeling Bautista was tendered because Cito wants him and will platoon him with Snider which would be a huge mistake.
If the Jays do sign another OF, then the direction is clear and imo, we should trade Snider instead of screwing him around and forget about this building with kids, cause it isn’t about to happen until we play these kids and let them get the experience needed.

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